Love Songs: If you Love Somebody Set Them Free & other Somebodies

I really "love" this song...

Released in the 1985, near the time Sting broke up with The Police permanently, Dream of the Blue Turtles was his initial effort solo. If you love somebody (set them free) was his big pop hit from it. (Fortress Around Your Heart is another song from it.) With famous musicians Kenny Kirkland and Brandford Marsalis (who was musical director for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno) playing alongside him on the Nothing Like The Sun tour(Shakespeare's Sonnet), I got to see "If you love somebody", and many, many others performed in a top-notch manner.

Here are the lyrics to "If you Love Somebody":

If you need somebody,
call my name
If you want someone,
you can do the same
If you want to keep something precious
You got to lock it up and throw away the key
If you want to hold onto your possession
Don't even think about me

If you love somebody, set them free

If it's a mirror you want,
just look into my eyes
Or a whipping boy,
someone to despise
Or a prisoner in the dark
Tied up in chains you just can't see
Or a beast in a gilded cage
That's all some people ever want to be

If you love somebody, set them free

You can't control an independent heart
Can't tear the one you love apart
Forever conditioned to believe that we can't live
We can't live here and be happy with less
So many riches, so many souls
Everything we see we want to possess

If you need somebody,
call my name
If you want someone,
you can do the same
If you want to keep something precious
You got to lock it up and throw away the key
If you want to hold onto your possession
Don't even think about me

If you love somebody, set them free





Queen's Somebody to Love



Queen's Lyrics:
Can anybody find me somebody to love?
Each morning I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look in the mirror and cry
Lord what youre doing to me
I have spent all my years in believing you
But I just cant get no relief,Lord!

Somebody, somebody
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

I work hard every day of my life
I work till I ache my bones
At the end I take home my hard earned pay all on my own -I get down on my knees
And I start to pray
Till the tears run down from my eyes
Lord - somebody - somebody
Can anybody find me - somebody to love? (he works hard)
Everyday - I try and I try and I try -But everybody wants to put me down
They say Im goin crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
Got no common senseI got nobody left to believe

Yeah - yeah yeah yeah
Oh lord
Somebody - somebody
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

Got no feel, I got no rhythm
I just keep losing my beat
Im ok, Im alright
Aint gonna face no defeat
I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday Im gonna be free, lord!

Find me somebody to love
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

And lastly, 'Somebody' by Depeche Mode:


Lyrics too:
I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She'll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general

Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and
With every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyone's strings
I'm carefully trying to steer clear of
Those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I'll get away with it

KEEP IT FRESH TO DEATH!!!!

The baseball book: Here's a whole bunch of it - draft form

For those who actually like reading online PDFs, here's a link to Bringin' Gas and Dialin' 9: 100 Years of Professional Baseball Development (1908-2007). It is not necessarily the lastest and greatest, but it includes all the chapters, appendices, structure and most of all, the research I did. For those who find baseball a bore, I understand. I don't expect you to digest a subject that upsets your stomach. (But if you look close, I included plenty of pictures, charts, graphs, tables that assist or liven the project up.)

There is plenty more I can do (as the linked post relates), but I think you can follow the structure of the book and understand what I was trying to accomplish.

Since more people stop by this site, I felt this might be a good way to get out the word. (In case I find a crackhead editor/publisher that wants it.)

I appreciate any feedback, complaints, or suggestions. In fact, unlike many authors, the more pointed the criticism or complaint, the more likely I am to reflect on it, possibly revised or investigate it.

(To get ahead of a complaint: the pictures are from various websites listed either in the Preface or the Bibliography. My placing of a copyright on the work is not legit:This is a draft. This is a forum to vet any concerns about the analysis/structure or mistakes....not to find a way to ruin a project before it gets published. Lawyers need not apply to this job.)

Realize this:
1) I used the local library for the research. This means, whatever the lending library had or I could access online, I used best I could.
2) No interviews or trips to Cooperstown (MLB Hall of Fame) or Kansas City (Negro League HOF). So, I don't get the words that I would have respectfully inserted from the original source. I could never leave "my post" because I was not properly relieved of my duties...(Mil people will get that.)
3) I did the bookstore reading too. However, once I lost my laptop's usage, hand writing notes was considered inefficient. Plus I could remember the gist of 80% of what I read.
4) Conflicting sources. As always, the stories told are not always the same, author to author. Many, many conflicts arise, even in 2007, over what exactly happened, whose fault was it or why was something done. Baseball has this problem in spades....The most vocal people usually win.

Enjoy Bringin'!!!!!

I do, Robot: Marriage, Sex and the slippery slope

I read Wonderland or Not's post on Robot Marriage and looked at a MSNBC and LiveScience article on it. To me it is an inevitability that comes with the course of our society. The slippery slope has long been greased and readily available by the ever failing partnerships many have.

I know this comment will strike a discordant note, but feminism and the infantilization of men has paved a way for poor relationships. After WWII, the rate of divorce climbed to stratospheric heights, and between bad marriages, selfishness and the broken homes, well, we might as well GO ROBOT.






The simple reasons this could work:

1. People that are unsuccessful in human relationships for a wide variety of reasons (appearance, shyness, poor interactions, poor lovers or instability.)


2. People that utilize technology in a vast array of ways to fulfill their needs (and sex is a need for many that I've stumbled upon in life.)


3. An alternative to socially unacceptable behavior ( you name them in your head...prostitution seems to be a bugaboo amongst people of faith.)


4. Robots could provide stimulation and gratification that simply isn't available from a person. (And the criteria most would have could be fulfilled via a robot.)

The rest of this is a modified comment of mine from Wonderlandornot.
When it comes down to it, we all have desires to act or choose not to act on. If there is a machine (or blow up) that provides a release and somehow satiates our desires, then it is a worthy enough path.
Artificial means are becoming the status quo in America/World society. Drugs to balance us, cosmetic operations to mold us and machines to do whatever we need them TO DO. Why would sex & companionship be ANY different?
Use Pills for sexual dysfunction.
Use Pills to "make us happy."
Use Computers to do our ‘mundane’ calculations. (Can any of you do a multi-linear regression or Laplace transform without it –in 60 seconds?)
Use all these PDAs to communicate, like, "how you your so not into him/her." How much of your current 'social interaction' now is on a keyboard or a video link? And that’s pretty impersonal, don’t you think?

DNA experiments above ALL our heads. (Clone me up, Scotty!)
We started this slippery slope with test tube babies, genetic mapping and other enhancements to our physical beings. This is just another avenue of exploration...one we've thought about for many, many years, going back to Greek Antiquity.

No, this isn’t what we should be doing - but as time marches on, these things are an inevitability… 20+ years ago, if you piddled with a computer TOO much, you were a geek, loner and a loser. Now all the “cool” people are computer savvy. Plenty of ignorant people (people you would never talk to normally) have plenty of technology in their hands that they avoided like a plague not too many years prior.

Hence, when a functional apparatus for partnership comes out, and people mock, deride or sneer at its usage (and permanent linkage to it), we will soon enough find that this ROBOT will become accepted as people eventually acknowledge it useful and wondrous nature. (And since the first users will be very comfortable with tech, it isn’t like they would be cheating on humanity that much…)

Yet, every prior generation loses something to tech.

I’ve met quite a few people that feel sex is a mundane task too. They’re usually married. So why not have it completed by something, a robot, that won’t piss you off if you suck literally and figuratively at it?

And no, I haven’t “blown up any date”......yet.

The Five B's of my female Robot:
Brains. This will be the easiest initially to satisfy. Obviously programming them with a compedium of knowledge is a cake walk. But the ability to facimilate a subtle and engaging personality will be the real trick.
Bible. Not in the traditional sense. But the do good unto others. Goes to the Isaac Asimov three laws of Robots. However, if you Robot partner "felt" abused, then shouldn't be able to abandon you?
Body. Both sexes want the penultimate in this area. Good side: they will always be in the same beautiful shape. Bad side: you won't.
Beauty. Inner beauty will be the hard part. You don't want a bore - else you'd go back to humans. Outer beauty: damn this could be made even better if the robot could morph into a variety of aesthetically-pleasing faces and skin tones.
Brawn. What's a robot if it can't do a whole lot more than you can? Like fix a futuristic car, or redo your house in a couple of weeks. These little tasks would be a snap for my robot honey.

I DO ROBOT.

Happy HalloThankMas: Let the Holidays Suck IN!

You gotta hand it to the Retail Section of the Captains of Industry, they know us all too well. Since people started abandoning Christmas and Thanksgiving, Halloween has become the commercial jackpot to flock to by these big-box, chain store and mall anchors we-shop-till-we drop at.

The Christmas season begins November 1st on WLIT in Chicago as they play Christmas music 24-7 for two months solid. I get to hear Amy Grant's "It's the Most Wonderful Time of THE YEEEAAAARRRR!!!!!!" until my ears bleed, if I let my mom pick the station on the RAD.

The Holidays have never been my cup of Joe. My mother no longer has the Holiday Cheer and I don't get much uplift from the usual fair of people I meet. I get more out of watching "Charlie Brown's Christmas" , Rudolph's "I wanta be a dentist" cartoon and "Jack Frost" trying to score a honey, on the money, sonny than any real closeness to goodwill to my fellow undercover brotha.

I'd like it to be different. I really would.

Long time ago, Halloween was just excellent. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, I scored candy better than a cocaine user looking for a kilo of Columbia dancing dust. We'd go out all night till 11 PM, make two-three trips, then eat and go to a haunted house at midnight. All the fake blood you could see. Coffins and just totally weird music and everything blurred by smoke. (Not pot smoke.) Everything about the experience seemed fast.

I also remember in my first years of school I was picked as the kid to get the crap scared out of by a teacher. I'd be sent to get something in a empty room --all dark like -- then bam! this teacher in a gorilla suit jump out and scare the piss literally out of me. I'd run fast as hell back to class, tell everyone a gorilla was loose and the class went out looking for him/her. It was a blast.

I know those days of fun are fin. Nothing is going to happen to me this holiday season that will stick in my mind. Not going to find love. Or a lottery jackpot. Or resolve some long-standing, but short-thrifted issue that could broaden my horizons. Sorry, that isn't what the holidays are for.

I'll "do the mall", window shopping items for myself and others, hoping a movie will be worth watching, probably go to Chili's, TGIF or some other eatery on a gift card obtained doing deliveries. It will get tiresome after a day. I'll think about church...Only think though. And soon enough the entire thing will be over. And another year will park in the NEW EMPLOYEE parking lot of our minds.

The Twelve Days of Demented Christmas -circa late 2005

1. Holding a séance to bring back Elvis Presley from the afterlife just to ask him, "Just what kind of psychedelic drugs were you take while filming 'Roustabout'? Because that movie sucked…Mr. Presley."

2. Crank calling Bill Gates (AKA Santa Claus or The Incredible Software Hulk) to say, "Hey where's my XBOX 360, punk? And why are the games $20 more… for the same fucking game!!!?"

3. Scheduling an appointment with Dr. Kevorkian for a Colostomy. During the procedure, he offers you Twizzlers, hands you Juju petals and says quite chipper, "Every time a bell rings, an asshole gets cleaned out. Time to Check out to Kott's Berry Farm, cocksucker!!!"

4. Holding a G13 Summit Meeting with such heavyweights as the Bush sisters, the Gore daughters, Christina Aguliera, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Nichole Richie. You discuss arms proliferation while playing a mean game of Strip TWISTER. Al Gore interrupts with an Inconvienent Truth: you ain't man enough to handle all these gorgeous, if emotionally fragile, women.

5. You and a best friend go dumpster diving in the swank neighborhoods of Aspen, Colorado looking for the best possible morsel tossed out by these fly-by-night YUPPIES. You encounter Kobe Bryant…looking for his "A" game.

6. After his long Christmas MASS, you wake The Pope abruptly from his slumber and tell him, in Latin, "Credo Elvem etiam vivere! Die dulci freure! - I believe Elvis lives! Have a nice day!"

7. You climb the Empire State Building (with Naomi Watts in tow.) At the top, you scream, "Look, I'm on top of the WORLD!!!" and bungee jump off, only to realize (too late) the cord is 5 feet too long. Naomi spends several hours waiting for a helicopter ride, then flags a cab to Peter Jackson's next film set of weirdness and Oscar 'potential.' Note: That's one more woman you won't be getting laid by....

8. You'll make a blood pact, hammered, with Bill O'Reilly to reduce the number of KFC franchises in NYC while swapping war stories of conquest, drunkenness and lecherous behavior at The Doll House, an upscale strip club in Atlanta. O'Reilly looks at new intern(s) possibilities and ferrets out a few "video resumes" from the candidates for perusal later. Later, Bill gets picked up for soliciting sex from a tranny… You testify against the prick.

9. You attempt to rob a 7-11 at the exact moment Gary Busey and Winona Ryder decided to do the same. You bond, and become the famed trio of Pistolero Bandits: Gary Ryder Harder Trio. You rob 7-11s, Speedways and Sonics from coast to coast and never get caught.

10. You wake up Christmas Day and find yourself as a CARTOON working as Beavis on 'Beavis and Butthead.' You get to rehearse, "The angle of dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of the meat," while sitting in your STAR chair at Universal Studios. Everyone wants to draw you…Then you get transfered over to the Family Guy...and watch as they erase Beavis and Butthead.

11. While flying the U-2 spy plane (learner's permit), you run into Wonder Woman and set down in Aruba. Things ensue…you get married and have 50 super strong, but super dumb kids, and Wonder Woman needs full body lypo shortly after her 350th birthday. (Fountain of Youth discovered…but skin never quite stops drooping…)

12. And finally, each Holiday, you find one profound reason to give joy and happiness and peace unto men: You like the upside of monetary gain, personal attainment of materialistic goals and overall acceptance into the milieu of your peers and inferiors. …And it sure beats the Hell out of being a Fucking Scrooge!!!

And the beat goes on to 2008....

Music: When all else fails, put the needle on the record

I apologize for not posting Part III of On the Fly, Run the Table. Seems writing about other things sapped my brain of juices. Since I have a habit of the unfinished (whether it's procrastination or just inability to complete tasks), I will try my best to post it by Monday.

But you know how promises are: only as good, as the motivating factor to keep them. (Money & Sex are pretty good motivators for most mammals.) So instead, here's some music and thoughts surrounding the choices

M.A.R.R.S. - Pump up the Volume. Late 80's dance hit. My best friend at the time in high school totally loved this one-hitter. He was a classic heavy metaller. It is a dance club mix favorite.



Electric Light Orchestra - Don't Bring Me Down. I love this ditty from 1979. Jeff Lynne became the lesser member of the Traveling (Stoners?) Wilburys - Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison. ELO was an 8-track legend as far as I am concern. Another friend had a 73' Olds 98 hoopty that sucked gas like a $20 whore does - but kept on a runnin', 8-track and all.


Material Issue: Valerie Loves Me. Classic early 90's pop ballad. They started in Chicago - where I heard them in the late 80's on the fringe rock station - but they fell out with God knows how many other bands. Toad the Wet Sprocket and Sister Hazel come to mine...as others.


The Why Store: Father. Another semi-big Midestern act out of Indianapolis. They performed at a frat house I happened to get invited into one night back in 1993 or 94. It was the first time I had to carry my then drunk best friend (6'4", 240 lbs. to the car I was driving, along with two women that wanted a ride.) Neither woman was interested in us...You might notice the Father in the video..supporting actor in "Seabiscuit" and "A Time to Kill", I think.


Gravity Kills: Guilty. Hell, I didn't know they would get into a Harry Potter vehicle. This song is about 12 years old or more.

I was going through a phase in music. Along with NIN, Ministry, Stabbing Westward, Manson, Tool and probably a dozen other fucked up bands of the genre, I listened to the this "cutting edge" garbino. (Only NIN had a message I could "relate" to.)


Stabbing Westward: What Do I have to Do?

And finally....

Johnny Cash: Hurt. Probably a better cover than the original NIN's version. At least, Cash had a sense of what made this song...special enough to record. I can't imagine what it was like for him to do it.


KEEP IT FRESH TO DEATH!!!!